Pellentesque tincidunt libero a urna convallis sit amet porta velit cursus. Pellentesque rutrum mollis urna, id hendrerit felis tincidunt vel. Sed iaculis, odio sed elementum gravida, lacus arcu vulputate tortor, sit amet pellentesque libero quam non nulla. Fusce malesuada elementum consequat. Etiam tristique odio nec nibh gravida lobortis. Integer lorem risus, vehicula eget sodales vitae, porttitor vitae ipsum. Nulla facilisi. Integer tempor porta tellus vitae eleifend. Maecenas porta odio nec dui malesuada rutrum ac a lectus. Integer quis augue dolor. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque faucibus dignissim pharetra.

Fusce vel risus dui, at iaculis enim. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Duis vitae dolor justo, a fringilla odio. Suspendisse potenti. Mauris a erat mi, a aliquam elit. Nulla facilisi. Morbi ut nibh nibh, quis sodales massa. Nulla venenatis nibh sit amet lorem semper eu accumsan tortor aliquet. Vivamus vel mauris dolor, non pretium ante. Morbi aliquet turpis eu nisi interdum malesuada. Vestibulum pretium accumsan elit vel tempus. Phasellus convallis dolor nec dui rhoncus tristique.

Maecenas pharetra augue sed arcu volutpat bibendum. Sed mattis ante fringilla sapien iaculis adipiscing. Pellentesque non enim ac justo volutpat semper. Proin id purus magna. Quisque nec quam eu ipsum consequat pellentesque ut sit amet ante. In placerat, turpis sed molestie luctus, augue magna mattis risus, ac euismod purus arcu id turpis. Sed vitae velit lectus. Sed id ultricies diam. Nulla facilisi. Sed luctus tristique est a venenatis. Maecenas sit amet nibh in tortor molestie dignissim et sed tellus. Donec iaculis lacinia eros, et laoreet metus condimentum vel. Nunc suscipit gravida mauris, vitae mattis ligula blandit at.

Nam commodo felis vitae arcu congue sed dignissim ipsum aliquet. Nullam feugiat convallis lectus non venenatis. Donec et sapien turpis, eget eleifend sapien. Integer lobortis rhoncus elit, eu volutpat elit venenatis ac. Maecenas viverra pulvinar sem at egestas. Praesent commodo nisi nec ligula semper sed porta sem sagittis. Mauris lobortis, odio sed ultricies facilisis, metus dui pellentesque enim, vitae vestibulum magna urna ut lorem. Fusce non felis ligula, dignissim luctus dolor. Proin viverra aliquam porttitor. Phasellus dapibus lacus sit amet magna consequat sed consectetur mauris dignissim. Cras ultricies dapibus tortor, sed posuere mi hendrerit vulputate. Proin vel metus sit amet nunc feugiat dictum. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Sed sit amet arcu enim, malesuada euismod nibh. Donec ullamcorper scelerisque dolor eu ullamcorper. Curabitur tincidunt volutpat urna at commodo.

Within days, it had spread across the Internet. Soon after it left my desk, I lost any attribution as the source — it was commonly attributed to “author unknown” — and became an anonymous bit of short-lived viral Internet humor.  A friend who worked for a Senator told me that it was buzzing around inboxes all over Capitol Hill. Filmmaker Michael Moore featured it on his web page as the “daily message” and emailed it to hundreds of thousands of his fans. Somewhere along the way, somebody copyedited it and corrected my subhead, replacing “smote” with “smitten.” It was re-posted on thousands of newsgroups and forums. It was translated into Spanish, German, and Japanese. Several friends forwarded it to me, not knowing that I was the author. It literally went around the world, popping up on millions of computer screens, then came back to my inbox.

I learned two things from that experience.  

First, make sure your name appears on your work, or no one will know what you created.  

Second, it’s impossible to predict when something will blow up on the Internet.

Most content lands with a thud. Most web jokes flop. Most blog posts are never read.  Anyone who promises that they can make something “go viral” is lying.

In the years that followed, much of my professional life focused on the Internet: email marketing, web design, online activism, interactive design. Generally, you bat for the average on the web: some content does well, some doesn’t, but you work to build a steady growth in traffic or to reach a particular audience. You’re just trying to get on base.

But every once in a while, you take a swing and something flies out of the ballpark.

My most recent “viral” success came last year at my day job with this infographic.  It started as a simple request from an economic policy expert who wanted to compare proposed federal budget cuts with existing tax breaks. She brought me an overwhelming five-page spreadsheet with 50 rows of numbers. If you dug through the dense data, you could see the comparisons, it took a lot of focus and concentration. 

I suggested that we cut the data down to ten or fewer comparisons, and rather than comparing items based on topic, compare them based on value.  In other words, we didn’t need to compare a transportation budget cut with a transportation tax break; what we wanted to show was the choice being made between budget items with a similar price tag.  That choice would show the priorities and the ideology behind the budget, and say something about the people who pushed for it.  My client agreed, and so I created a very simple side-by-side comparison table, focusing on a clean, readable design, something people could understand at a quick glance.  We gave it a somewhat uninspired headline:  “Infographic: Tax Breaks vs. Budget Cuts”

We posted it on Tuesday, February 22.  At first, it gathered good traffic, but nothing prenomenal.  But a couple weeks later, someone called “greywolf359” posted it on a Daily Kos diary with the headline “The Must See Chart (This is What Class War Looks Like).”  That post sparked 133 comments and was “liked” on Facebook more than 11,000 times and tweeted more than a thousand times.  That same day, someone spotted the DailyKos post and re-posted the graphic  on posterous.com with the same headline. This post was the one that really exploded:  it was viewed more than 1.1 million times, generated nearly 500 comments, was tweeted 1,325 times, and was liked on Facebook 104,000 times. Two days later, Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic made it his “Chart of the Day,” adding his short note: “You don’t have to be a flaming Marxist to see that there’s something askew here.”  All this buzz drove traffic back to our original post, generating more than 200,000 page views, making it the single most popular item on our web site for 2011.

In the end, this little graphic that I only spent a couple hours on was viewed by millions of people, sparked debates and arguments across the web, and, most importantly, advanced our argument to a wide audience.  This graphic hit the web long before the start of the Occupy movement and the 99% protests; it attempted to re-focus the public debate from a narrow focus on budget cuts to a bigger question of national priorities. We wanted to show that it wasn’t just about cutting spending, but also about reconsidering tax breaks that benefited the wealthy.

A cocktail of chaos and boredom fuels the Internet; it’s hard to foresee what will spread exponentially. Most often, stuff that goes viral does so by luck more than by design.  That said, a few things helped us with this graphic that can inform designers.

First, the graphic was simple. We showed a lot less information than the client originally wanted. We also edited all the text down to the most minimal labels.  The result made this easily skimmable; a chart you could read and understand within a minute.

Second, a clear message drove the design: our argument was that the proposed GOP budget cuts were unfair choices when weighed existing existing tax breaks.  Each line showed a choice available to lawmakers when they considered a new budget: safety-net programs that benefit large groups of people or tax breaks that help the richest Americans.  We hoped the comparisons would alarm and infuriate people, and, by all the evidence, it looks like they did.

Third, the graphic was credible.  This wasn’t a piece of political propaganda. Every number was sourced and verified: we used no “fuzzy math” or statistical trickery to build this infographic.  People could — and did — disagree with our take on the numbers, what they meant, and whether or not our arguments are valid, but we wanted the facts to be irrefutable.

The infographic didn’t move.  It had no animated rollovers.  It didn’t even have any graphics, other than some color and a few lines.  It had good content and a design that didn’t get in the way.  And that, as much any thing else, is a formula for a viral hit.

Four Common Web Print Problems

Unstyled content. A page prints out with zero formatting: big, chunky Times New Roman letters spit out of the printer. The font is the least vexing problem. The bigger issue is that a raw, unstyled web page printout often includes a lot of stuff that users don’t need: navigation elements, social networking links, archive links, and blogroll items that are useless to someone reading on paper. With all this unstyled, useless text preceding and following an article, a three-page blog post can become a sixteen page, tree-killing mess.

For example, here’s what Paul Krugman’s NYTimes.com blog looks when viewed online in late-2009:

If I want to print his entire blog — not just a single entry — how do I do it? Hmmm… I can’t.

So if I hit print on my browser (without hitting the small, designated “print” icon), I get this mess:

It’s 26 pages of unstyled content, a third of which is messy sidebar and navigation stuff I don’t need, an ugly waste of ink and paper.

Some web pages need two or three pages to print unstyled navigation and header junk before getting to the actual content on a page. The navigation links are worthless to someone reading this on the plane, let alone the five pages of sidebar clutter, ads, and footer content.

Endless comments. I notice a popular, useful article in my feed reader, go to the page, and print it out. When I go to the printer, I see a 60-page stack of paper waiting for me? Why? Because I got a two-page article, followed by 58 pages of user comments.

For example, this popular post on Copyblogger, is five pages long.

Or so you’d think. Print it out and it runs 57 pages:

Most of us would prefer to just get the original article, not all the chatter that followed it. A user could preview the printout in his browser, and tell it to only print the pages before the comments, but this work-around is inconvenient, and something most won’t think to do until they waste half a ream of paper.

One page only. This common printing problem with web sites occurs most commonly for Firefox users. When you print a five-page story, the first page prints, and then anything that would have appeared after that page just vanishes. So instead of getting the whole story, you get the first page worth of content, then maybe a page with the footer on it. If you’ve printed out several articles from a site, then go to your printer to grab the articles, it’s maddening to discover all you have is the first page of each.

Here’s an example from the blog of author Dan Baum:

This article is nearly 2000 words long. If I print it in Safari, I get every page of it, plus all the comments, nine pages total.:

But if I print it in Firefox, I get the first page, and the rest vanishes. Poof!

Few users would know to try another browser to make the page print correctly. Since Firefox users make up at least one in four people on the Internet, this kind of problem is unacceptable.

Prints too skinny. A final problem is when a web page or blog prints with the correct style, but in doing so, is formatted too small for the printed page, leaving close to half the page blank. The result, often, is small, hard-to-read text and more pages than would be necessary. Usually the culprit here is a design with lots of sidebar clutter that squeeze all of the content into a skinny middle column that runs long when the page is printed.

The Solutions

First, a general rule: every page should print well

Many sites feature a print icon that triggers some kind of printable version of a web page. And users often look for that icon, so you should offer it. That said, every page should print well, with our without someone hitting a print icon. In other words, you shouldn’t need to go to a “printer-friendly version” of a page to get a reliable printout. If someone hits print on their browser, the output should printer well. Many blogging tools and content management systems offer options for printer-friendly pages and “print templates.” These are great, but they aren’t the only places that you should focus on printer-friendly design.

A print style sheet

The first and most fundamental thing anyone should do to make site content more print-friendly is to set up a proper print style sheet. There are plenty of tutorials and guides to print style sheets (see below), but here are the three key fundamentals:

1. Set up a separate print style sheet., i.e. “print.css” that overrides the default screen styling when a page is sent to the printer. Your main CSS file should be set to media=”all”. What your print style sheet will do is override elements from your primary stylesheet when pages go to print. All you need is this:

<link rel=“style sheet.” href=“print.css” type=“text/css” media=“print” />

Be sure to put it AFTER the main CSS link in your header, not the other way around.

2. Take stuff away. So what’s IN this print style sheet.? Basically, the idea is that the print style sheet. should remove unnecessary elements that aren’t useful for print readers, and format the content to better fit a 8.5” by 11” page.

Removing elements is easy if you’ve done clean, accessible markup. Identify DIV’s that you won’t need on a print edition of your page and use the DISPLAY property to render them invisible. For example:

#sidebar, #navigation, #toolbar {display:none}

Another trick is to apply a “noprint” class to specific elements in your markup that are clearly for screen use only, and adjust the display element. For example, lets say you have a video in a blog post. Obviously the video won’t be of any use in the printed version of this post, so you can apply the “noprint” class to that embed code.

<object class=”noprint” width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/-Sgj78QG9Bg&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/-Sgj78QG9Bg&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

And then add “noprint” as an element not to display:

#sidebar, #navigation, #toolbar, .noprint {display:none}

3. Let the content fill the page. So now you’ve stripped away the elements a printed page reader doesn’t need or want to see, let’s reformat the content to play nice with their printer.

Let’s say your page content is wrapped in a #content DIV. On the live site, you might have it defined to a certain width, something like this:

#content {display:block; width:620px; padding:1em;}

What you’d want to do is take away the styling that locks the content into a certain width or shape. Unleash that text — that means lose widths, margins, padding, and flow it all as inline text. The browser will take it from there and print it to fit the page. So with the above #content div, you’d change it to something like this:

#content {display:inline; width:100%; padding: 0}

For more on using and applying print style sheets, check out the following:

• Print style sheet. – the definitive guide (Web Credible)
• CSS Design: Going to Print (A List Apart)
• Creating a Basic Print Style sheet. (Exploding Boy)
• A Useful Print Style sheet. (Kilian Valkhof)
• Little CSS print style sheet. tip (37 Signals)

Fix the one-page printing glitch.

One reason this can happen is that a designer uses tables or iframes to create their layouts, which can lead to printing problems. But as most designers have moved on to modern, more accessible design, this is less common. Still, if you’re trapped in 1999 web design techniques of laying out web pages with tables and frames and graphic “shims,” this may be the problem. Knock it off, read a good book on modern web design, and this problem will often disappear.

Still, as noted above, some CSS-driven web pages get cut off when the print (most often in Firefox) because a containing DIV can’t “break” across pages. It’s complicated but the problem is rooted in nested “block” DIV’s. Newer browsers seem to be handling this problem better, but this issue still affects a segment of visitors, so don’t ignore it. What happens is that the browser gets confused when it renders the page for multiple pages and instead of breaking the text over a number of pages, prints it as if the text would continue to flow from the bottom of a single page, which means that it doesn’t print at all. It wants to print to an 8.5” x 12-foot sheet of paper, but since it can’t, it just prints the first eleven inches of content.

The fix for this is surprisingly simple. If your containing DIV is truncating when printing make sure that its CSS declares it to be “display:inline.” If you need a DIV around it to define a block element, fine, but the immediate “container” should be rendered as “inline” for the print CSS.

Check out Ben Nadel’s excellent article for a more detailed explanation of this problem and how to fix it.

Default to printing without comments, but consider offering a “print with comments” option

Some readers might like to read all the comments that accompany and article, but most won’t specially if there are dozens of pages of comments. So as a matter of rules, stick to printing without comments as a default. Some sites offer two options: a link to “print with comments” and one to “print without comments.” You can offer that option as a choice for users. But again, make the default print style simple, useful, and readable for users on the move.

Follow those three fundamental solutions and you’ll eliminate 90% of the problems users might encounter printing your web pages.

A few final tips:

Set up a mini-logo or mini-masthead. Many sites use a miniaturized version of their logo or banner for the print edition to anchor the page. You can set it up with a “.print-only” class that shows up in print-styled version of the article, but not the screen-viewed pages. Or some CMS plug-ins allow you to select and provide a print-version logo. Either way, consider an economically-sized version of your logo for the printed to maintain your brand, but in a quiet, printer-friendly manner. This printed page from Salon is a good example:

Make text a readable size. Since you’re printing to a page, feel free to bump up your base font to a more readable size. Often, what works on-screen appears a bit small for many readers on the page. For the print.css, you can define your base font in points, not pixels, and go for something larger, like 12pt.

Set text to black. Web designers often set base fonts to a dark gray rather than a pure black. Don’t ask me why. We just do. That’s fine, but when gray goes to print on many printers, it tends to look fuzzy and often hard to read. When you set up a print style sheet, reset those colors to a pure black, and your printed pages will be cleaner and more reader-friendly.

Don’t use ads… but if you must, be discrete. I understand some publishers feel the pressure to generate revenue, even in print pages, but if you do so, try not to create huge, messy printout that users don’t want. The New York Times has a good example of small, unobtrusive advertising in their printouts:

Finally: remember, users are printing content, not sites. Most readers just want your content, not all the extra sidebar stuff, background graphics, navigation links, and promotional elements. They just want your essential content to go seamlessly from the screen to their printer in a easy-to-read format.

With that in mind, take the time to set up your web sites right so that when users hit “print,” they get what they want.

If you want to check out stuff in depth, here’s "a feed apart," a collection of real-time tweeting going on at the conference and my own rough notes (day one | day two) from the individual sessions. But for a quick skim, here are twelve of the most interesting take-aways from the conference:

Photo: FLICKR / John Morrison

Zeldman doesn’t see the point of your redesign

1. Jeffrey Zeldman suggested that the most important question to ask at the start of any redesign is "What problem are we trying to solve?" If the client can’t answer that question, you might not need a redesign. He points out that "you get tired of your site before the public does," and that doing a redesign mostly for cosmetic reasons is rarely a good idea. A redesign should take place to help a web site do something better or more effectively, not just to give it a new look.

2. Zeldman’s tips on design for non-designers: Limit the number of colors, type styles, type sizes, and use a simple layout. Do that, he says, any almost anything will look somewhat cohesive visually.

3. Along the same lines, Jason Santa Maria offered his "drop-dead guide for not making ugly stuff with type":

• don’t use two scripts
• don’t use two display typefaces
• don’t use two sans serif faces
• rule of thumb: ONE OF EACH (the key is contrast)
• if possible, pair fonts from the same designer
• look for contrast, not similarity, between fonts in use

4. Jason Santa Maria also suggested that when it comes to design, it’s better to think first and sketch out your ideas before sitting down at a computer. Let the computer be “a tool of refinement,” not the starting point for thinking through ideas for a design concept.

5. Kristina Halvorson said that the biggest reason for delays in web projects is content: people don’t plan for it, wait too late to create it, and don’t think through all the different types of content they will need to launch. She argued that web projects should START with a content strategy before a design strategy. And, perhaps most alarmingly to designers everywhere, she pushed a bold rule: “never use lorem ipsum.” (dummy text leads to mock-ups and design concepts that are removed/detached from the real site that will be delivered)

6. I didn’t love Dan Brown’s presentation (a bit too abstract and high-concept for my liking), but I loved — and totally agree with — this quote: “the curse of being a designer is you are perpetually unsatisfied with your work.”

Photo: FLICKR / John Morrison

Whitney Hess just called you a wimp.

7. Whitney Hess gave a great talk on user testing. “It looks good” is the worst feedback you can get from users: you want to hear what they don’t like, what confuses them. And the process of user testing and improvement should be ongoing, not a one-time exercise. She advocated doing user testing live, yourself, vs. online testing (“Don’t be a wimp! Be in the room with the test subject. Feel the pain!”) She quoted principals from a successful web business (iridesco.com) that relied heavily on user testing and feedback: “You have to have humility and listen. Users aren’t always right, but you need to hear them.”

8. Andy Clarke urged designers to shut off Photoshop and Illustrator and start designing “in the browser.” He argued that Photoshop mockups create static, unrealistic, flat model of a design for something dynamic. “We’re designing web pages, not a photo of a page.” Echoing many of the speakers, he advocated a “content-out approach.” He also argued emphatically that web pages don’t need to look the same in every browser — they just need to WORK in every browser. Experiences can vary.

Photo: FLICKR / John Morrison

Eric Meyer: Pro-JavaScript, Anti-Haircut

9. Eric Meyer predicted that within the next two years, JavaScript will largely replace Flash plug-ins on the web. He showed how JavaScript tools are helping enhance the web and lead innovation that browsers are slow to provide. “We don’t have to wait for the standards bodies or browser makers anymore.” Some cool stuff he showed: modernizr (making old browsers behave like newer ones), cufon (font replacement with JS, not Flash), typekit (a third-party font-replacement tool), raphael (JavaScript vector drawing), bluff (JavaScript graphing), and processing.js (lots of funky vector animation and games)

10. Luke Wroblewski talked about web forms and how they are almost all terrible. His pitch, in short: Nobody likes forms. Forms get in the way. Make them easy for your users. He provided a lots of examples and best practices (too much to summarize here), but his book covers it all in detail.

11. Dan Rubin’s talk was a bit all over the place, but he argued a simple, important principle: “If your design needs instructions, it probably needs to be redesigned.”

12. Dan Cederholm demonstrated lots of ways to use “progressive enrichment” in web design by using CSS3 today. His new book goes into detail. Lots of this will only be visible to people using newer browsers, but since most of it presentational, people with older browser won’t know what they’re missing. He refers to a Shaker design philosophy quote that applies well to web design: “Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.”

1. Life is better with a dog next to you.
2. Don’t be afraid to try new things.  But it’s okay to try some things only once.
3. Wonderful things can emerge from broken plans.
4. 95% of the time, you should be honest and tell the truth.  The rest of the time, it’s better to say something agreeable or keep your mouth shut.
5. You don’t really appreciate your parents until you are an adult.  And you appreciate them even more once you have children of your own.
6. The best pizza in the world is served in Chicago, at Giordano’s or Gino East.  No other place comes close.
7. It is not a good idea to split a bottle of Tequila with someone before heading out for the night.
8. Star Wars is not as good as I though it was when I was a kid.  It’s actually goofy.  That said, when Han shows up in the last second to save Luke and help him destroy the Death Star, I still get chills.
9. Everyone should read Catcher in the Rye twice.  Once as a teenager, once as an adult.
10. There are few places more beautiful than the hills in Tuscany, the beaches of Bermuda, the humbling glory of Grand Canyon, or the view from Highway One as it winds around the northern California coast. 
11. If you want to really get to know someone, drive across the country with them 
12. You will hurt people — sometimes by accident, sometimes out of thoughtlessness, sometimes on purpose.  The important thing is to own up to what you’ve done and try to atone for your actions.  Some people will forgive you, some won’t.  But you should try either way.
13. Poker taught me that you’ll rarely have all the information you need to make a 100% perfect decision, in cards or in life.  The best you can do is slow down and think, consider the likelihood of possible outcomes, then make a decision.  Major life decisions are often more of a gamble than anyone tells you.
14. The challenge of being a parent isn’t making the big decisions. It’s the thousands of tiny, micro decisions that are hard. 
15. Petty, cruel, and evil people are everywhere, but they are vastly outnumbered by individuals who are kind, generous, and compassionate.  It may not always seem that way, but only because bad people get more press.  
16. Most friends will eventually drift out of your life. That includes most of your “best friends.”  It’s sad, but natural: people change, start families, or  move to different places.  If you’re lucky enough have friendships that remain close after decades, hang onto them.  The older and busier you get, the harder it is find true friends.
17. When playing Texas Hold’em, it’s almost always a good idea to fold Ace-Jack preflop.
18. You’ll win most of your games in Madden if you learn to play defense, run the ball, and hit your tight ends on crossing patterns.
19. If you see a restaurant that makes sub sandwiches, Chinese food, fried chicken, pizza,  and seafood, stay as far away from it as you can.
20.  If you follow sports, even a little bit, you can make small talk with almost any stranger.
21. Naps are good.  Take them whenever you can without apology.
22. Raisins have no business in oatmeal cookies.  Macadamia nuts need not be paired with white chocolate, either. Raw cookie dough added to ice cream, however, was a stroke of genius.
23. When you’re stuck in the wrong job, you dread the morning alarm, the clock creeps, and lunch becomes the most important event in your day.  We aren’t made to live like that.  If that’s your day, it’s time to quit and do something else.  
24. Sometimes, people deserve second chances.  Third chances, on the other hand, are almost always a bad idea.  If life gives you a second chance, don’t miss it.
25. You can believe something your whole life, only to realize that you’ve been wrong all along.  Don’t be stubborn and ignore reality.
26. Winning always feels good, whether it’s pool, air-hockey, or skee-ball.  But when you worked hard to get better at something — practicing, studying, training — and then you win, it’s ten times more satisfying.
27. If you want to feel alive, climb into a roller coaster.
28. Coney Island, Las Vegas, and South of the Border are cheesy, tasteless, and creepy places, but if you don’t spend some time in all three, you’re missing out.
29. Dating is tricky.  People generally want a partner to be four things: attractive, smart, fun, and sane.  98% of the time, you’ll find someone with three or fewer of those qualities, though it may take a while to know for sure.
30. It’s okay to go to the movies alone.  Vacations, too.  Sometimes it’s actually better.  Just don’t make it your lifestyle.
31. Everyone should climb up and leap from a high dive at least once.  The moment between leaving the platform and crashing into the water will be one of the longest and most thrilling seconds of your life.
32. You’re  much better off giving a college kid a beer than a credit card.
33. There are few better ways to spend a sunny afternoon than snorkeling on top of a warm ocean, watching colors shimmer, wriggle, and dance beneath you.
34. When you’re stumped creatively, get up and take a walk.  Somehow moving your legs and breathing in fresh air helps jar loose new ideas.
35. Most people, even your friends and family, don’t really know you.  They have a perception of you based on how you were as a child, a roommate, a classmate, or a co-worker.  Their notion of you, and what you are capable of, is based on memory.  But who you were isn’t who you are, or what you can be.  You decide that.
36. You can help people, give them encouragement and love, but you can’t change them.  People have to change themselves.
37. It’s hard to top the sound of your own child’s laughter.
38. You aren’t trapped.  You may feel stuck or trapped in a bad place, but things are rarely as hopeless as they seem.  Decide that you will change your situation — whatever it takes — and as Joseph Campbell said, "doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be."  Sounds like mystical hocus focus, but I’ve seen it happen.
39. Some things you’ll only see or do once.  Slow down and take it all in.
40. The voice in your head that tells you that you can’t do something can be loud and persuasive. It is also, quite often, wrong.

With a baby and a toddler at home, a demanding job, freelance clients, graduate school, and a determination to play poker with a competitive edge, I drink at least one of these bubbly canisters of caffeine, taurine, guarana, and various other mysterious chemicals a day. I don’t drink coffee, so my daily energy boost comes from one of the following drinks. I’ll take all the help I can get.

Since 2006, I’ve tried almost every sugar-free energy drink I’ve discovered. Unless otherwise noted, I stick to the low-carb versions of these drinks, but occasionally, I sample full-sugar energy drinks as well. Some are forgettable, some made me cringe, some made me feel like I could jump over a house.

[Author's note: I originally posted this in 2008 when the count was around 40 drinks. I updated this from time to time as I discover new (and usually awful) energy drinks.]

Below is every energy drink I’ve tried, rated, with notes:

Top Shelf

1. Jolt Ultra: Sugar Free. This is a tough drink to find, but if you see one, grab it. Light. Refreshing. Smooth. Tastes a bit like a carbonated version of the original Gatorade, spiked with a major payload of caffeine. Comes in a big, re-sealable 24-oz canister that looks like something that might be used to refuel a space ship. If I could find this one in more stores, it would be my first choice.
2. Monster Java Lo-Ball.  I don’t like coffee, but I DO like this.  Kind of like a mocha drink, but cheaper, tastier, and loaded with bubbly caffeinated goodness.  Can’t get this yet in DC, but it will be a favorite when it does.
3. Monster Lo Carb (the Blue one).  A smooth, sweet flavor that goes down easy. No bitterness, or harsh citrus flavors. I’d drink this even if it wasn’t supercharged with caffeine. You can find this at almost any supermarket or mini-mart. Hard to beat this as an excellent go-to energy drink.
4. Rush Energy Lite. Damn, this is a good drink! Sweet, tasty, and powerful…  like strawberry soda on steroids! Arguably the best overall drink in this list. Sadly, I have only seen this drink one time while in Miami… and I fear it may be extinct.
5. Ace Energy Drink: Lo Carb. Tastes a bit like Sweet Tarts, pulverized and and liquefied into energy drink form. Nice refreshing flavor. Not sure how potent this drink is, as I didn’t feel much of a kick. Bonus points for the funky, retro, poker- and pin-up girl themed packaging. A damn good drink, if you can find it.
6. Red Bull Total Zero A sugar-free, zero-calorie vision of the energy drink that everyone knows. Seems to have a lighter flavor as well; a little less sweet. It’s subtle, smooth, and tasty. Might be a bit overpriced, but aside from that, it’s a great go-to energy drink.
7. Spike Shooter: Orange Gold. Wow. Tiny can, but packed with 300mg of Caffeine. That’s like six Diet Cokes or two Blue Monsters… Anyway, tastes great, like Orange Crush. Beware, though: it packs a serious wallop. Even for a hardcore energy drink fiend like me, this gave me the jitters.
8. Spike Shooter: Original Flavor. See above, only it tastes more like fruit punch. Again, beware: this thing packs a major punch. Might make some people jump off bridges or something…
9. Spike Shooter: ‘Quila Lime. See above. Quite tasty, with a bit of citrus bite. And the drink packs a punch. Again, beware: Not an energy drink for lightweights.
10. Full Throttle Lo-Carb. Nice and smooth, but does it taste like bubble gum? Good, but nothing I’d crave. It’s Coca-Cola’s stab at the energy drink market. Solid, but not overwhelming.
11. Full Throttle Fury. Throttle’s spunky little brother, a nice change-of-pace energy drink. More fruity. Very, very hard to find these days.
12. Full Throttle Unleaded I think this has replaced the Full Throttle Lo-Carb… Good, crisp, and taste. A first-tier energy drink.
13. All-In Energy Drink: Grape. I had pretty low expectations for this over-marketed, poker-themed energy drink, but I have to give it credit: tastes like grape Crush and delivers a nice punch of caffeine. Very tasty. Two downsides: First, the small, Red Bull-sized can is so 2003. Second, the language on the back of the can is very silly. An energy drink is a beverage, not a life philosophy.
14. Monster Absolute Zero. This seems exactly like Monster Lo Carb except it has “ZERO” calories (instead of 10). And for that, they charge a dollar more? We may be caffiene junkies, but we’re not idiots.

Surprisingly Solid

15. FRS Health Energy: Low Cal Peach Mango. A different kind of energy drink: it’s not carbonated and actually includes real mango puree in it. Boasts an alleged antioxidant called quercetin. Not bad at all. Tastes like a smooth, rich fruit juice. The only downsides: comes in a skinny, tall 11.5 oz can, and didn’t seem to pack much of a punch. Not as loaded with caffeine as other drinks.
16. Guru Lite. Small can. Tastes a little like Hawaiian punch. Not bad at all. Not a great value, though. Still, a pretty solid little energy drink if you can find it for cheap.
17. Amp: Sugar Free Lightning. Kinda like drinking a box of Lemonheads.Carbonated, sugar-free lemonade with 80mg of caffeine. Not bad. But by the time you finish the 16 oz can, the sweetness and fake lemon flavor gets a little tired.
18. RockStar Roasted Light Vanilla. Smooth and not too sweet. Nice mix of vanilla with a hint of coffee flavor. Big punch of caffeine. An excellent drink, though hard to find.
19. RockStar Lo-Carb.  Tastes better than other RockStar drinks, and has more caffeine. Win win! A little too fruity, perhaps, but other than that, a nice go-to drink. This was #1 for a while, but I’m starting to think this is just too sweet and berry-flavored, so I’m dropping it down the rankings a bit.
20. Xenergy Mango Guava. Stop laughing, it’s hella tasty and smooth! fruity, but not overly sweet… very balanced flavor
21. Xenergy Blu Pom See above; another excellent drink… tastes like berries and fruit, but not in a syrupy, overpowering way… crisp and delicious
22. Freek Sugar-Free Maniac. Ignore the horror-movie packaging — nothing scary about this tasty, refreshing energy drink! A very exciting new discovery, if you can find it.
23. Venom Energy Mojave Rattler. Made by the company that makes Seven Up and Dr. Pepper, this lo-carb drink doesn’t exactly taste as dangerous as it sounds. A nice, crisp berry flavor with a hint of citrus. Comes in a funky, re-closable bottle that looks vaguely like something in which you might store nuclear isotopes. A solid drink, but nothing particularly special.
24. Amp Energy (Sugar Free). Nice nice… Kind of Mountain Dew-y, but lighter-tasting and fresher. A solid new drink.
25. Highball Energy Drink. Found this at Whole Foods the other day and tried the lemon lime version. Very subtle flavor, kind of like tonic water. Not bad at all. Not the most powerful energy drink, but smooth.
26. Monster Rehab (Tea/Lemonade). So this edition of the Monster franchise is a non-carbonated version of an Arnold Palmer. Tea with lemonade, but with lots of caffiene. Not bad, but not anything great.
27. Monster Rehab (Green Tea + Energy). See above, except more of a subtle green tea flavor. Fine, I guess. But nothing you’d ever crave…
28. RockStar Recovery. I’m not sure RockStar needed another variety of their energy drinks, but here’s another: this one is uncarbonated and has a vague lemonade flavor. Supposedly, it’s a “hydration” energy drink because it has electrolytes. Whatever. It’s utterly forgettable.
29. Sexy Italia Energy Drink Plus. Not sugar-free, but I got it as a gift so I tried it. Excellent flavor: maybe a blend of cherry or raspberry, and very smooth. Would go great with vodka. If you’re in Italy any time soon, this might be a good call.
30. Rockstar Recovery. Another energy drink that pretends to be some kind of workout supplement (ENERGY + HYDRATION!). Don’t all drinks provide “hydration?” I tried the “Lemonade” flavored one. Sweet and tasty. Also pretty forgettable.

Lower Your Expectations

31. Redline: Triple Berry. Tasted like berry-flavored Kool Aid. A bit too sweet. Aftertaste was a tad harsh. Not bad, but not great.
32. Java Monster: Chai Hai. It’s a Monster drink. No wait, it’s a coffee drink. No wait, it’s a chai drink. And it’s not sugar-free. At first sip, it seemed very rich and tasty, like a good Chai. But after a third and fourth sip, it just seemed a little too milky and a little too sweet. Not a bad drink, but hard to drink a whole can.
33. NOS Sugar-Free/ Nice flavor, kinda citrusy, but in a good way; not a bad drink if you found it on sale someplace
34. Cocaine Energy Drink. Not sugar-free, but someone found this for me, and with a name like “Cocaine,” clearly this is drink crying out for attention. The packaging describes it as “a carbonated atomic fireball,” which sounds about right. It burns your throat and nose as if you chewed up up a bunch of fireball candies. And it’s got a ton of caffeine in it. But after all that, it’s not a particularly enjoyable beverage. I struggled to finish the can.I ‘ll say this — it tastes far different than any other energy drink, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.
35. Shark (regular).  Tried this one in Thailand.  Like a Red Bull, but not so cough syrupy… Not bad.  Didn’t find a lo-carb version. Solid.
36. Low-Carb Kronik Protein Energy. According to the can, it contains “power too sick for science.” If by “too sick” they mean Watery, berry-flavored fuzzy water, with a slightly bitter aftertaste, suppose they might be right… Next!
37. Unbound Energy Lo-Carb.  Discovered this new one on a gas stop near Pittsburgh, PA.  Not bad, but very sweet, without any real flavor to distinguish itself.  Not bad, but nothing special.
38. Enviga Sparkling Green Tea (Berry Flavor).  Something new from Coca-Cola and Nestle.  A little fruity, but fresh-tasting and loaded with caffeine and green tea extracts. A little timid.
39. Vault Zero. More of a soda than an energy drink, but tasty, cheap, and loaded with caffeine; close your eyes and you might mistake it for Mountain Dew
40. MdX Sugar Free. Some kind of “extreme” Mountain Dew drink (Mountain Dew X!) Like Vault Zero… only a little weaker
41. Starbucks Mocha Doubleshot Energy + Coffee. My brother reviewed the Vanilla version of this thing, so I was curious. They didn’t have a sugar-free version, but I tried it anyway. Verdict? Tastes like Yoohoo chocolate milk. Meh. Go for the Monster Java Lo-Ball if you want coffee/energy drink fusion.
42. Monster Rehab (ProTEAn + Energy). This one is just strange. Vaguely tastes like tea… but also has a strange chalky aftertaste (must be the 15g of protein blended into this chemical concoction.) All-in-all, pretty nasty.
43. Hi-Ball Energy — Wild Berry. Good news: it’s organic, fair-trade certified, and made of relatively natural ingredients, unlike most of these drinks. Bad news: it’s 100 calories and it takes like weak berry juice. Yawn.
44. 99 degrees (sugar free).  200MG of caffeine?!? Wow. Not bad, but the flavor is a bit medicinal.  Not too fruit, not too citrusy.  Just kind of like weak fruit punch with some hidden drug in it.  Not terrible, but nothing to grab off a shelf if other options were available.
45. Diet Red (Hansen):  Small can, sweet.  Very Red Bullish, with more of a berry flavor. Not bad, but nothing special
46. Mad-Croc. I honestly can’t tell how this isn’t the same drink as Red Bull Sugar Free… Maybe 2% more “bite”…  Solid, and I think cheaper than Red Bull.
47. Sugar-Free Red Bull The small can is awful as a matter of value… $2 for 8oz? And despite being one of the first energy drinks, its flavor is pretty unremarkable.
48. Brava Italia. Almost indistinguishable from Red Bull… maybe a little harsher. Odd European soccer players on the can. Not sugar-free.
49. Rhino’s. See Diet Red and Mad-Croc… maybe a little more tart, which isn’t better
50. Bing Energy Drink. The “Bing” refers to the cherry flavor, of which there is a ton in this semi-natural, semi-sugar free energy drink. Nice flavor, but a bit too sweet and syrupy. Had a tough time finishing the can.
51. Archer Farms: Sugar Free Raspberry. Target makes this drink, and it’s not bad. Gentle flavor, almost like a flavored seltzer water. The can is ridiculously girly. No man would want to be seen walking around with this, but his girlfriend might love it. Not much caffeine that I could detect. Meh…
52. Archer Farms: Sugar Free Tangerine. See above. Same deal, with a little more of a citrus taste. Yawn.
53. Jolt Endurance Shot: Wild Grape. One of the new trend of micro energy drinks in shot form, this 2.5 oz energy bump is like grape fruit punch that didn’t get mixed with enough water. Reminded me of children’s medicine. And where’s the enjoyment of drinking something like this? Lots of caffeine, no doubt, but not much enjoyment and a pretty forgettable flavor.
54. Rockstar Energy Shot: Tropical Fruit Punch Flavor. Here’s the good news: it delivers 200mg of caffeine in a 2.5oz bottle. The bad news: it tastes like Robitussin.
55. Simpsons “Flaming Moe” Energy Drink. Not sugar-free, but I got it as a gift and tried it. Not bad, actually… tastes like bubble gum. Best thing about it is the art on can, but otherwise, pretty forgettable.
56. Rofo Ka 5cal. Meh. Seemed a lot like Red Bull, with a vaguely bubble-gum, berry flavor. Just too sweet and generic. And not much of a punch.

Junk in a Can

57. Bawls Exxtra. Bawls made one of the earliest hyper-caffienated drinks on the market, and it came in a funky blue bottle (see below). Recently, they released a sugar-free edition of the drink. Not awful, but it tastes like sugar water… without the sugar. And I’m paying $2.49 for this why?
58. Monster Rehab (Rojo Tea). Another non-carbonated Monster mutation. This one, however, tastes like cranberry juice. Blech… What’s next, Monster Energy: EXTREME Prune Juice Edition?
59. Ripped Rage: Sugar Free. The packaging on this thing is very macho: chains, jagged typefaces, and a huge “R” that looks like it was carved into the side of a tree. It also boasts of using a “themogenic matrix(TM) that will make you break a sweat, or break something!” Um… okay, tough guy! Meanwhile, it tastes likes raspberries that were left in the fridge a week too long.
60. Exotic Spanish Fly. Very strange drink. This not-sugar-free “Spanish Fly” drink is made in Germany featuring something called “shizandra,” a Chinese herb “cherished among women as a sexual enhancer and youth invigorator.” Hmmmm… Well, this Spanish-German-Chinese energy drink tastes vaguely like berries. Slightly bitter aftertaste. Meh…
61. Red Bull SugarFree Shot. Meh. Tastes like condensed Red Bull, with no carbonation. 2oz of blah. And only 80mg of caffeine. Why bother? Other energy “shots” taste just as bad, but give you a bigger boost…
62. Blade Energy. Meh. I can’t tell if this is a CVS-owned product, but it’s like a Blue Montster, only a bit more harsh tasting. A very forgettable drink.
63. RockStar. An utterly forgettable drink. The best thing I can say is that it has bubbles.
64. Diet Pepsi Max.  Diet Pepsi + extra caffeine.  Not not THAT much caffeine.  Meh….
65. 5-Hour Energy Shot, Lemon Lime Flavor. I tried not to hold the annoying "5-Hour Energy" commercials against this product, but like most "energy shots," but this is terrible. If they made Lemon-Lime Robotussin, this is how it would taste. I also didn’t notice much of bump from this product; certainly not "five hours" of energy. The one good thing I can say about it is that the experience is over quickly. Like a shot of bad tequila: it’s nasty, but chug it quickly and it’s gone.
66. Bawls. I tried this—the non sugar-free version—before they came out with a lo-carb edition. Meh. Tastes like syrup. Oh wait, it IS syrup, with some caffeine added in for good measure. No thanks. Sexy bottle, nasty drink.
67. Arizona Green Tea Energy Drink. Sweet, weak, and kinda apple-juicy… Barely drinkable.
68. Arizona RX Energy Fast Shot. Take the above lame drink, condense it down into 2 oz of syrup. Barely drinkable becomes barely swallow-able. That’s not an improvement, but at least it’s over more quickly.
69. Monster HitMan LoBo Energy Shooter. Ugh. Tastes like Nyquil. I hate these energy shots/shooters with a passion. It has 160 MG of caffeine, but barely worthy the awful experience of swallowing this thick gooey mess.
70. Crunk. I really hoped to like Crunk, being Lil Jon’s official energy drink and all… The can boasts about the unique ingredient: Ashwaganda Horny Goat Weed. Imagine what you’d expect Horny Goat Weed to taste like — that’s what this tasted like.
71. 24:7 Lo-Carb Energy Drink.  If you squint your eyes, it looks like a Blue Monster. But it tastes like a Red Bull mixed with Antifreeze. Yuck.
72. Energade. Like Gatorade, only weaker and flatter-tasting. Pretty terrible stuff, which is why I’m pretty sure it no longer exists.
73. Sparks. An energy drink mixed with beer. And yes, it tastes about as bad as that sounds.
74. Lost Lo-Carb. Sour. Bitter. Horrible. Please STAY lost.
75. Lost Five-O. Even worse… I could only take two sips of this before surrendering.

Beverage Crimes Against Humanity

76. Sobe Adrenaline Rush. Bitter. Possibly rancid. The only adrenaline I need for this is for throwing the can as far from me as I can.
77. BooKoo.Is BooKoo a foreign word for “water pollution?”
78. VonDutch. Just foul-tasting, bitter, and weak. Almost undrinkable. Von Sucks.
79. Sobe NoFear. Easily the worst energy drink in the world… Seriously. Someone needs to be charged with a felony for marketing this sour, bitter can of nastiness. It might be made from rancid grapefruits. Humans should not ingest this liquid.
80. Fuel Extra Strength 7 Hour Energy Shot: Fruit Flavor. I’m not a fan of “energy shots” over actual drinks to begin with, but this is simply horrible. If cough medicine could go bad, it might taste like this. Inside this little bottle is a dark, terrible place where happiness and joy die.

I found the explanations in the WordPress codex confusing and unhelpful. I searched around for some other solutions and didn’t find much to help me sort this out. Most articles or posts on the matter were knee-deep in code and long scripts. Finally, I found this post by Lorelle on "Creating Multiple Single Posts for Different Categories" which was tremendously useful. However, I still found the explanation a bit fuzzy. I sorted it out, but think a clearer take on this might help other similarly baffled WordPress users:

Step 1: Design two (or more) custom templates. A good way to start is to copy the "single.php" file from the default templete and modify it to suit your needs. In my case, I set up one template called "blogpost.php" and another called "article.php." I prefer to have descriptive template file names. Need more help? I’ve found Ben Gillbanks’ short tutorial on creating custom templates useful. Ok, so once you’ve got your custom templates worked up, copy them into your theme directory.

Step 2: Back-up your single.php file. Since the next step will destroy your single.php file as it currently exists, take a few seconds and make a copy of your working file, just in case something goes wrong. You can always replace your modified single.php file with the original to change everything back to the way it was before you started tinkering. Better safe than sorry, right?

Step 2: Turn the "single.php" into doorway to your custom templates. In a normal WordPress theme, the "single.php" file, also known as the "Single Post" template, takes a post and styles it with this basic template. But if you want to use multiple post templates, you can use this file to help WordPress understand which one to use. The WordPress engine looks at the single.php file to style your post’s content, but since it is a PHP file, you can use it to redirect it to your custom templates.

So what we’re going to do is replace the single.php file with some very short code that tells WordPress to check the category of a post and then load the appropriate template. You use the categoryID number from the Manage | Categories tab to identify the correct category. Here’s how the code would look:

<?php
$post = $wp_query->post;
if ( in_category(’5′) ) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/article.php’);

} else {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/blogpost.php’);
}
?>

So let’s break this down. the first two lines set up a query. The second line tells WordPress that if a post matches category 5 (which happens to be the ID for my "article" category… your number would vary, obviously), load the template "article.php". The next lines say, basically, "ok, so if this isn’t an article, it’s a blog post, so go ahead and load "blogpost.php".

But what if you have more than two category-based templates? No problem. Your new best friend is a little conditional tag called “elseif.” Here’s how that would work:

<?php
$post = $wp_query->post;
if ( in_category(’5′) ) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/article.php’);

} elseif ( in_category(’6′) ) {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/column.php’);

} else {
include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/blogpost.php’);
}
?>

So this three-way query tells WordPress, "if a post is category 5 (an article), load the article.php template, if it’s not category 5, then check to see if it is category 6 (a column) and load the column.php template if it matches that, otherwise, it must be a post, so load the blogpost.php template." You can set up as many “elseif” statesments as you need to match the number of custom post templates you want to use.

Go ahead and save your single.php file. That short snippet of code is all you need. You’re almost done.

4. Give it a test. If you did everything right, the single.php should act like a traffic cop and direct posts to the correct template, depending on their category. Test posts by category and see how they display. If the templates seem broken or no post shows up, you may be missing a bracket or semicolon someplace in your single.php file. Go back and double check it. Conditional statements (if, else, and elseif) can be a bit confusing, so it can help to check the syntax here. You might also need to make sure your custom templates don’t have any odd code that might mess up the display.

Hope this helps. Drop me a line if you have questions or comments…

I was curious what the guy was talking about, so I ran the page through Babelfish and learned that they were mostly talking about his socks, buying more at H&M (they have H&M in Italy?), and his upcoming class reunion. Somewhere in the middle of this, he linked to some mashups, including mine. He got lots of comments on his socks, not so much on my bootleg.

Still, nice to know my mashups have now been listened to in North America, Europe, Asian, and Australia, maybe elsewhere. I need to work on building my African and Antarctic audience…

The following, in my humble assessment, are the 11 most overrated films in history. If you love these films, good for you. You probably hate some of the movies I love. Let’s call it even, despite the fact that you’re so wrong not to recognize how weak many of these movies really are.

First, a disclaimer: For the purposes of this article, I’m focusing on films that either won major awards, rank highly in the IMDB Top 250 or AFI’s 100, or have a significant cult or fan following. Godfather 3 or Rocky V, for example, can’t be overrated, but most people already think they sucked. A second disclaimer: this article contains spoilers, so if you haven’t seen any of these movies, stop reading if you don’t want to read how some of them end. Finally, just because I call a movie “overrated” doesn’t mean it’s not a good, even a great, film. It just means that some of these films have gotten more of their share of acclaim than they deserve.

That said, some of these movies also flat out suck. Onto the list:

11. Fletch. A lot of people, myself included, still quote this movie often (“It’s all ball bearings nowadays!”) This 1985 Chevy Chase Comedy has a handful of memorable lines and funny moments. Fletch’s dream of playing for the Lakers, with a big bushy, white-man afro, and being interviewed by announcer Chick Hearn was endlessly amusing to me as a kid. But in between those memorable lines and short bits of goofiness, there’s not much of a movie here. The film’s producers clearly wanted to showcase Chase’s comedic silliness, but felt compelled to wrap it up in a conventional smart-but-unconventional-cop-gets-results storyline. For every one of Fletch’s great lines, there are three or four attempts that just don’t work. The guy is just a snarky wise-ass, in an early-’80s, Jack Tripper kind of way. Some comedies from the 80s hold up well, and they remain clever, entertaining, and funny. Fletch isn’t one of them — it’s half a dozen good lines, stretched out over 90 minutes of tedious, B-movie junk.

10. Crash. When I walked out of the theater having seen Crash, I thought maybe the movie was supposed to be some sort of parable. It was heavy-handed, unrealistic, and people didn’t talk like real human beings. We weren’t supposed to take this film seriously, were we? Still, it was trying to say something about race and culture and how we’re different, but separate, but connected, yet disconnected… and so on. I at least give the filmmakers credit for trying to look at some serious issues. But the movie oozed a sense of importance that it didn’t deliver. Some of the dialogue was unintentionally funny. The plot twists were manipulative and cheap. I was actually surprised that such a mediocre firm was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. I was stunned when it won, convinced it had to be the beneficiary of some odd vote-splitting list of nominees. Not only was it nowhere near the best film of 2005, let alone among the best movies in recent years. If you look at the nominees for Best Picture since 2000, I’m don’t think there’s a worse movie than Crash… maybe Gosford Park, but that’s only because Crash had Thandie Newton in it, and Gosford Park didn’t.

9. The Shawshank Redemption. Shawshank is on TNT approximately five million times a year. It is the second-highest rated film on IMDB, and it was nominated for seven Oscars. It is a movie that can make grown men cry. Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins deliver great performances. Thomas Newman’s original score is beautiful. It’s an engaging film about perseverance, friendship, will power, and hope.

But then again, does it really belong in the same company as Godfather, Godfather II, Schindler’s List, and other consensus top-ten films? Is it really one of the ten best films of all time? First off, the villain of the film, Warden Norton, is an incredibly cartoonish, two dimensional bad guy. He and Cal from Titanic could have a “pure-evil-for-the-sake-of-being-pure-evil” standoff. Aside from greed, we have no idea what made him who he was. The Warden is pure evil, and is willing to kill the prisoner who can help prove Andy’s innocence in cold blood. And yet, even though Andy is the one man who could expose him and all his criminal dealings, he doesn’t do the simplest thing and just kill Andy. Why not? Because Andy has to wind up hugging Red on the beach years later.

Secondly, think about the scene where Andy locks himself in a room and plays classical music over the loudspeakers to the rest of the prisoners, who stop in the courtyard and stare up in awe and wonder. Are you kidding me? The scene tries to be a powerful, emotional peak in the film, but it comes off as laughably implausible, even in the 1950′s.

Finally, the movie makes it a little too easy on the audience by giving it all the answers. Is Andy guilty? Does he really escape? Will he and Red ever meet up again? Nothing is left for the audience to wonder about, no ambiguity — everything is spoon-fed to the audience in tasty, happy-ending bites, right up to the final “hug on the beach” scene. Wait… this movie ends with happy people hugging on a beach? Yes it does.

8. Chicago. This won Best Picture? Seriously? It must be a musical thing. I don’t get it. How did this movie get an Oscar, but Saving Private Ryan and Letters from Iwo Jima didn’t? I take back what I said about Crash. Compared to Chicago, Crash is Citizen Fucking Kane.

7. Casablanca. Old Hollywood doesn’t get a free pass on this list. And perhaps the most overrated of the classic Hollywood films is Casablanca. AFI calls it the 3rd best film of all time. The IMDB 250 ranks it #8. Almost any list of the top ten films in history includes this Oscar-winning film. When people think of this movie, then tend to think of the famous lines: “Here’s looking at you, kid”… “Play it again, Sam”… “I’m shocked, shocked“… “We’ll always have Paris”… People also remember the look of the film: the glorious, rich black and white, with Humphrey Bogart smoking in the darkness. All of those things make this film a classic, but beyond that, the movie doesn’t quite live up its status as the best of the best. Does it really hold up after almost 70 years later as the highest achievement in filmmaking? I’d have to say no. Ultimately, I think nostalgia makes people give this movie more acclaim and praise than it deserves.

The acting, as was often the case in the 1940′s, is a bit campy and shallow. Bogart’s character is witty, sharp, and cynical, but he doesn’t seem particularly real. There’s a stage-play “acting” style to all the performances. Bogart’s role as Rick is far from his best work. He delivers dozens of quips, but they don’t seem like something a real person would actually say. The characters, aside from Rick and Ilsa, are mostly caricatures. Sam is a piano-playing black sidekick with no other human qualities, despite being one of Rick’s oldest friends. The Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark were more complex. The cynical Captain Renault is little more than a memorable bit of comic relief. And while I understand that some of this acting style was common at the time, but even for that era, the acting in Casablanca feels a bit thin. It’s a great story, but it often has the feel of a larger-than-life Broadway play more than a work of cinema. I respect this film, but if audiences watched it for the first time today, few would think the movie belongs in the top ten, even in the top twenty of all-time films. Just because a film is memorable, that doesn’t mean it is great.

6. Field of Dreams. I’ve seen people describe this as the “best baseball movie of all time.” Nonsense. It’s not even the best Kevin Costner baseball movie. It spends entirely too much time prattling on about the “poetry” of baseball and elevating the sport to some kind of mystical, magical form of art. This movie wants desperately to be the ultimate love-of-the-game baseball movie. Baseball is so incredible and magical, it will bring your dead father back to you! So I’m going to call the film’s sugary sentimentalism about baseball strike one. Strike two? This film pumped up Kevin Costner’s ego to dangerous levels and led to the American tragedy known as Waterworld. Finally, it’s obvious to me that this sentimental ode to “America’s pastime” helped inspire the intolerable Ken Burns’ 19-hour Baseball documentary series, which brought over-wrought baseball metaphors and poetry to a new height. That’s strike three. Next!

5. 2001: A Space Odyssey. AFI calls this movie the 15th best film ever made. Science Fiction fans often still speak of this 1968 movie with hushed reverence. The movie was a pioneering film in terms of visual effects that would evolve in the ’70s to make movies like Star Wars and Close Encounters possible. But it lacked the storytelling that made those later films great. In short, 2001 is a three-hour bore. With long, slow shots that go on pointlessly for minutes at a time, a meandering, confusing plot, and the lack of a single interesting human character, this film is a painful cinematic experience. Director Stanley Kubrick seemed more interested in showing what the future might look like in 2001 than in telling a good story. When the two most memorable characters from your movie are a monkey-man who finds a bone and a talking computer, it’s possible that your three-hour science fiction epic needed a lot of help.

4. Gladiator. I like this movie. It’s my favorite DVD for testing out and showing off how cool surround sound can be. It’s an entertaining action movie with a spectacular recreation of ancient Rome. Russell Crowe is memorable as Maximus. But seriously… how the hell did this win Best Picture? For all its entertainment value, it’s a bit like a comic book. The villain, Commodus, is a one-dimensional cartoon. What’s worse, in his famous exchange with Maximus in the middle of the Roman Coliseum (“I will have my vengeance…”), the two speak to each other in normal speaking voices, and yet half the crowd can hear the conversation, including Commodus’ sister, who is about 100 yards away. The movie also has the token black sidekick to the hero, the child actor who really needs a haircut, and a bunch of undeveloped characters that the audience is given little reason to care about. All that said, Gladiator was a fun, summertime, popcorn-crunching movie. I just have no idea how it was deemed the best film in the same year that Memento, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Traffic were released.

3. The Matrix. Matrix was a pretty good film, mixing an intriguing storyline, innovative special effects, and some memorable quotes. Countless movies have tried to imitate its funky style and cool action sequences. It sparked a lot of interesting philosophical conversations about fate, the nature of reality, and choice. It spawned more fan sites, videogames, and pop culture references than almost any film since. Not bad for a sci-fi action summer movie. But for a lot of people, especially younger filmgoers, this movie is their Star Wars. And while I like Matrix, it is a movie with a lot of glaring flaws.

First off, there’s Keanu Reeves, who has the emotional range of a cucumber and brings little to the movie other than a very appropriate look of befuddlement for most of the film. Whoa!

Second, if you think too much about it, the core premise of the movie doesn’t make much sense. If the “machines” are using humans for energy, who bother giving them an imaginary universe in which to live? Why not just treat them like some biological fuel source and let them all rot in a coma-like state, thinking about nothing at all? Wouldn’t that still provide them with the energy they are harvesting? Better yet, couldn’t they just harvest the energy from cows or other big mammals that aren’t so high maintenance?

Third, there’s the ending of this movie, in which Neo is dead until Trinity tells him she loves him, and that makes everything better. Hurray for love! Seriously — the writers seems to have gotten stuck trying to figure out how to revive Neo, and finally gave up. “Screw it,” they must have said, “let’s just say Trinity brings him back with a magic kiss! Genius!”

And finally, Matrix is a bit tainted by the less impressive and more confusing sequel Matrix: Reloaded and the terrible, I-wish-I’d-never-seen-it conclusion to the trilogy, Matrix: Revolutions. The final film was a wholly unsatisfying end to the series and the worst of the trilogy, leaving unresolved a lot of the biggest and most interesting questions raised in the original film. Once you see Revolutions and know that Neo isn’t going to really free his people from the Matrix after all, that Morpheus’ biggest hopes will never be fulfilled, the first movie looks a lot more like a big tease for a payoff that will never come.

2. Dirty Dancing. Since I don’t know many men who like this movie, this one’s for the women of the world to explain. This movie is always on cable. It seemingly has some new commemorative DVD every year. Almost every woman I know adores this film and has probably seen it dozens of times.

I honestly don’t know why this corny ’80s dance movie isn’t largely forgotten along with Grease 2. I just don’t get the appeal of this film on any level. I must be in the minority, but even at the time the movie was released, I thought the music sucked. Moreover, the star of the film is Patrick Swayze. That by itself should have killed this film.

The worst part of it all is the final scene, an excruciating dance sequence where an army of cheesy people dance off the stage and down the aisle of the theater to that unbearable “The Time of my Life” song. One writer described the final dance sequence in this film as “the most goosebump-inducing dance scene in movie history.” I’m not sure how many dance sequences induce goosebumps, but the only thing this one should have induced is laughter.

1. Scarface. This movie is #1 and it’s not even close. Not only is this easily the most overrated film of all time, it’s not even a good movie. It’s badly-acted, badly-written, violent crap. Aside from one early part of the film — the “‘chainsaw” sequence, which is extremely suspenseful and masterfully directed — Scarface is a terrible movie.

There is not a single character in this movie you can really care about. Al Pacino’s performance mostly consists of using a terrible, fake Cuban accent and shouting “fuck” every other word. This movie marks Pacino’s first real foray into loud over-acting. And while Pacino’s performances in the Godfather films, Serpico, and Glengarry Glen Ross are rich and complex, in this film, he deliver little more than a loud, two-hour Cuban caricature.

We also never learn why his wife, Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer) ever warms up to him. Like many of the characters in the movie, there’s no depth or complexity to her. She’s just another plot device to give Tony Montana reasons to scream and freak out.

Whenever Tony gets really angry, there’s a bizarre sound effect and a close up of his eyes that’s incredibly silly. It’s like something out of a bad kung fu movie.

The music in this movie is horribly dated —a terrible synthesizer-heavy sound that lived and died in the 1980s.

The movie is vulgar, violent, and bloody and almost all of it is gratuitous. Yes, it’s a gangster movie, so it’s going to have lots of violence, but great films about criminals or mob life find ways to make the audience identify with or care about the main characters.

Scarface is a shallow, ugly movie with few redeeming qualities. It doesn’t deserve a fraction of the attention and praise it has received over the years. It would be better if no one remembered it at all. And for that, it’s easily the most overrated movie of all time.

The problem is that not only do different desktop email clients like Outlook or Thunderbird render HTML email messages differently, popular webmail tools like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail all rewrite, change, and alter your code to fit it within their web-based email application. Some disable CSS styles, some break any links to external stylesheets, and almost all of them will pick and choose between which CSS elements they will support, and which they will ignore.

Clients already receive slick, cool-looking HTML email in their in-boxes… They don’t care about coding and compatibility problems — they just want something cool, too. “Hey, if Apple can do it,” they say, “why can’t we?”

But wait, it gets better — increasingly, thanks to Spam and security concerns, the default mode of many webmail clients is to block images from new recipients until a user opts to allow them.

So let’s review: there are countless email readers and applications out there. All of them will render your HTML email differently, supporting all or none of your CSS. In varying degrees they will all rewrite your code. And, quite often, your images won’t be viewable to the end user. Swell.

One solution might be to take Zeldman’s advice and stop using HTML email altogether. After all, email isn’t the web, so why try to treat it as if it were? Save design for web pages and keep email light, text-only, and simple.

But most of us have clients or bosses who already receive slick, cool-looking HTML email in their in-boxes. As consumers, they already see that some people are generating pretty, polished, stylized emails. They don’t care about coding and compatibility problems — they just want something cool, too. “Hey, if Apple can do it,” they say, not unreasonably, “why can’t we?”

Moreover, from a marketing perspective, many organizations find that well-designed HTML emails get higher open and click-through rates than text-only email.

So, it seems, the solution for designers who need to design HTML email is to create designs that work relatively consistently across platforms and email clients. Here are eight tips for making that happen:

1. Make Nice with Tables.

Most good web designers these days have turned away from the use of tables on layout, opting instead for usable, accessible CSS-based presentation and layout. However, with HTML email, a lot of these approaches won’t work. Almost every web-based email client will ignore or mangle CSS-based layout. Those carefully floated and positioned elements will wind up in entirely different places than you intend. The only way to ensure that things line up the way you want them to across the wide range of email clients is to use tables.

Yes, tables. It’s tough to accept, but tables are a necessary evil for HTML email. You don’t have to don’t go back to the worst of table-based layout techniques — spacer images, hacked up artwork, and endlessly nested code. But tables can provide basic structure, columns, and grids for laying out HTML email. It may be a bitter pill to swallow, but if Rocky could team up with Apollo, if Sarah Connor could learn to trust a Terminator, if Johnny Damon could play with the Yankees, you can learn to get along with tables again. You may feel dirty, but you’ll get over it, I promise.

2. Use CSS… just not too much.

Here’s the good news: you can use CSS to style content in HTML emails. But the bad news: you can’t use it too much. Campaign Monitor has an essential, comprehensive guide to which CSS elements work in various email clients, but here’s the Cliff Notes version: generally speaking, you can use CSS to format content, but don’t rely on it for layout. Use CSS to style font sizing and color. Use CSS for basic border and background background color effects. Use CSS to apply some simple padding and margin effects. Beyond that, you’re starting to ask for trouble. When I design an HTML email template, I generally use CSS to handle the presentation of body fonts, headers, and simple alignment and spacing.

3. Ignore the HEAD, focus on the BODY

An important rule to remember is not to link to an external stylesheet. Many email clients, desktop and web-based alike, are suspicious of an email linking to an external file. Some will completely ignore the attempt to import or link to an external CSS file. Moreover, many webmail clients will disregard any code put above the BODY element. So the key is to not only put your CSS style inline in your HTML, but to put it in the BODY of the email, not in the HEAD. With the annoying exception of Gmail, almost every email client will understand and render your inline CSS for basic styling, as long as you put it all in the BODY element.

4. Be smart with images.

Some rules of thumb to remember with images:

Always give images absolute, not relative, paths. Because your message is going to places you can’t predict, all of your images need to be linked with fixed, absolute paths.

Always use ALT tags. They’re not just for good usability and accessibility practices. If an email client has images turned off (and increasingly, email clients turn images off by default) you want them to be able to read a description of the image.

Always provide size attributes for images. If you specify HEIGHT and WIDTH for images, your layout will stay more intact, whether or not someone can see your images.

Before sending out an HTML email, always test it with images turned off. When you try to read the email without any images, does it still make sense? Can a reader still understand your message without the images showing up? If not, go back and rework the design so that, in a worst-case scenario, a reader won’t miss anything important if their reader refuses to display your images. A great tool for testing this is the Web Developer plugin for Firefox. If you don’t have it already, get it now.

5. Go Skinny and Top Heavy.

These days, web sites are getting wider, thanks to the popularity of big monitors and supertanker-sized laptops. But emails can’t afford to get so big. Most people still see email in smaller windows on their desktops. And many only see the top parts of emails, if they skim them through a “preview pane” in their email client. So when you design an email, it needs to be more narrow than many web pages, and it needs to have the most important stuff at the top. Generally-speaking, stick to a width 600 pixels or less when building an email. Anything wider, and a lot of readers will never see the right side of your design.

And if you want readers to see anything more than your logo or some big, pretty image at the top of your email, be sure to get to some real content within the top 200 or 300 pixels from the top of your email. The “preview pane” in Outlook, for example, might only let readers see the a 600 x 200 pixel preview of your message. If you don’t design well for that space, your readers may hit delete before ever bothering to scroll down and find out what you had to say.

6. Design for the Worst-Case Scenario.

Take time to design your email for situations where images or CSS may be turned off. If you haven’t already read Dan Cederholm’s Bulletproof Web Design, order it now. Cederholm provides excellent techniques and methods for making design that is “bulletproof” to most potential problems. While of some Cederholm’s approaches won’t work in HTML email, his general principles are applicable. For example, if you have an image that might be blocked, be sure that there is a background color behind it that will maintain the general look of the page. Plan ahead.

Here’s another example. For one email template I built, we had a sidebar with a special header. To match a non-standard font from their branding, I used a graphic. But since I can’t guarantee that everyone will see this image, I need to make sure that an image-less or unstyled version of the same email will still convey the same basic information. I do this by wrapping an H5 tag around the image. Here’s the HTML:

<h5><img src=”[absolute path to image]/head-goodnews.gif” alt=”GOOD NEWS” width=”140″ height=”20″></h5>

The H5 has the following CSS applied to it:

h5 { font-size: 120%; color: #990000; margin: 0 6px 6px 0;font-weight:bold; border-top:solid #cccccc 1px; line-height: 1.8em;}

Viewed normally, all the H5 does is add a light gray line above the image. Since there’s no text there, it doesn’t need to apply font-sizing or color to anything. Interestingly, though, if the image is turned off, and it will still style the ALT text according to the H5 CSS. So, as you can see below, it will still make the header the right size and the right color. It won’t match the font I used in the image, but at least it will be a close approximate match, and it will still style the line above the header. Finally, if I turn off both the image and the CSS, the H5 still gives the ALT text the standard H5 styling, which is at least better than nothing:
This is just one example, but hopefully I’m making my point. The email should “gracefully degrade” by building it to communicate effectively, even if the CSS or the images get blocked.

7. Provide alternatives.

Your HTML email should always offer prominent links to two alternate versions of your message — a web-based version of the email and a text-only or mobile edition. If you want to make mobile web enthusiasts happy, offer a “mobile edition,” which is just simple HTML with basic content, links, and simple formatting (bold and italic). Yes, it’s more work, but you always want to give your audience a choice. Some people want no-frills text in their in-box, some will never unblock images in their email, but might click on a link to a web-based version of your message instead. And there are always blackberry-addicted readers out there who want to read your message, but need a cleaner, simpler edition. With a little extra effort, you maximize the chances that your audience will see your message. It’s OK if they decide how pretty it looks. Don’t write off any part of your audience because you demand they view your message in a certain way.

8. Test obsessively.

You can design an HTML email that looks wonderful on your screen and in your own email in-box, but that’s just the starting point. You can’t possible test for every email appication in existence, but you should definitely test as many of the major email applications as possible. If you don’t already have accounts with Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail, take a few minutes and set up test accounts. If you use Outlook primarily, download Thunderbird or another free email client as a secondary email application to use for testing.

One method I use is to make this simple is to set up a email group that includes all of my test accounts. When I have a draft, I send a test email to that group in one blast and lets me quickly check how everything looks.

Don’t be alarmed if Gmail looks the worst. Gmail, my email client of choice, is sadly weak in terms of supporting HTML emails and often ignores CSS styling that every other email reader handles beautifully. I hold out hopes that Google may improve on this in the future. But for now, I find that you can use the techniques listed above to get Gmail close to matching the design that other readers will see, but it can be tough to get it to match exactly without doing endless inline styling with font tags.

Finally, if you design on a Mac, be sure to test how things look on a Windows machine — fonts appear smaller on a Mac, so you don’t want to be surprised at how it looks on a PC. Macs are great, but they still make up less than 5% of the overall home computer market. It’s flat-out irresonsible and arrogant not to test on the platform that the vast majority of recipients will use when they get your email. There’s simply no excuse for not testing on a PC.

That’s it for now. This is really just scratching the surface, but hopefully it will save you some time trying to figure out why your HTML email design looks terrible in Hotmail or Yahoo. For more on HTML email design, including best practices and tips on marketing, check out the following:

• Campaign Monitor: Email Design Guidelines for 2008
• MailChimp: Email Marketing Guide
• Loren McDonald: 20 HTML Email Tips

In the meantime, let me know if you have any additional tips and suggestions if your own… HTML email design is an ever-evolving and changing practice. Start with best practices now and you’ll be ahead of the curve.